


Purgatory Problems

by fifthhollow



Series: All in the Family [1]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Supernatural Nicole, This has been sitting at the back of my head since mid season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-20 06:32:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11915154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fifthhollow/pseuds/fifthhollow
Summary: Purgatory is a place of mystic nonsense and supernatural shenanigans, luckily for her, Nicole Haught has some experience in those things.





	Purgatory Problems

Waverly leans closer to the bar top, her hands pressing firmly against the dark wood as she tries to focus her attention back on the book in front of her. A puff of warm air hits the back of Waverly’s neck and she is reminded of why a book that would normally be moderately easy for her to read is currently incomprehensible.

Giving up on her studious charade, Waverly turns around to face the red-haired, blue-eyed, source of her distraction.

“Read anything interesting, Waves?” Officer Haught – Nicole – asks, a smirk tugging at the edge of her smile.

“It’s kinda hard to focus with you breathing down my neck,” she laughs nervously.

“Sorry, I know it must be real hard to concentrate with eye candy like this hanging around. I should let you get back to your Ancient Sumerian,” Nicole says, tipping her hat and shifting back a little, but making no further move to leave.

“No, stay, I like a challenge,” Waverly says, putting one hand on Nicole’s forearm, and leaning into her.

“Is that so?” Nicole’s voice sounds distorted.

The next thing Waverly knows she feels strong hands encircle her throat in a bruising grip.

 

* * *

 

Waverly wakes in a cold sweat, her heart pounding wildly. Though the exact details of the dream fade rather quickly, the feelings of fear and betrayal linger for hours.

Across town Nicole wakes up to find herself on the floor of her living room, her phone's loud ringing not helping the splitting pain in her head. Reaching blindly in the direction of the ringing, Nicole swats around a bit before managing to grab her phone and bring it to her face.

Blinking blearily, Nicole rolls into a sitting position and answers, “Hello?”

“I found a dead body,” the voice on the other end of the call sounds like fractured glass; seconds away from shattering completely.

Feeling herself become significantly more awake than she was a minute ago, Nicole grabs the couch and pulls herself shakily onto her feet.

“Okay, okay,” Nicole tries to rub the sleep from her face and walks into the kitchen, speaking soft and slow, “I need you to stay with me and take a nice, deep, breath, okay? Okay, on the count of three…one,” Nicole hears the voice on the other side whisper ‘one’ with her and the tight knot in her chest relaxes just the slightest bit.

“Two.”

“Three…,” Nicole hears a deep a deep intake of breath in tandem with her own.

_One…_

_Two…_

_Three…_

“And release,” accompanies Nicole’s shuddering to exhale.

“I found a dead body,” the voice on the other end of the phone repeats, sounding somewhat more put together.

 Found, that means she probably didn’t do the killing. Dead body, that means the murderers probably long gone or at least out of sight.

“Okay, where are you?”

“The community swimming pool.”

Those are usually in more open areas so there’s probably no one hiding nearby.

“Do you want me to help you report the body or hide it?”

“Oh my God, report, Nicole. I want to report it. To the police.”

“Okay, okay, just checking.”

“Why do you even- I don’t. Want. To know.”

“Yeah, that’s probably true. Am I the first person you called? Are you alone?”

“Yes, and yes.”

“Hang up, call the police, then call whichever of your friends is most likely to be awake, then call me back and I’ll stay on the line until everything’s settled.”

 

* * *

 

 _‘Fuck, it’s cold_ ,’ Wynonna thinks as her fist hits a mound of snow where the second Tate revenant’s head used to be.

The revenant pushes her off him and makes to get on his feet and run away. A roar thunders through the snowy woods followed closely by a reddish blur.

Wynonna unholsters Peacemaker as she regains her footing, bringing it to bear against the back of the second Tate revenant.

Looking over the revenant’s shoulder Wynonna sees something that nearly makes her drop her gun in shock.

 _What the fuck?_ Wynonna thinks as she begins to step back and around so that she can keep both the revenant and the Beast that froxe the revenant in fear in her line of sight.

Just my luck, Wynonna thinks taking in the creature’s long scaly tail, powerful back hooves, mouth full of glistening fangs and numerous dangerous looking canines, and front paws and head of a tiger all topped with a pair of wickedly curved horns.

The Beast snarls,the revenant trips back onto his ass , his hat flies off.

Hetty is Neck Tattoo Revenant #2.

In another life this would be a larger revelation, in this one it pails heavily to the discovery that there is a tiger monster stalking the woodland in thhe Ghost River Triangle.

"Hey, Cujo, back off!" Wynonna yells, pointing Peacemaker at the Monster and making a shooing motion.

To her surprise, it does, albeit with an indignant snuff and shake of its head.

The Monster trots casually over to Wynonna's side and makes eye contact with her while nodding its head decisively.

Wynonna, ever the queen of winging it, nods back.

The Beast nods once more before bounding off.

 

* * *

 

Nicole opens her closet door, expecting as most do, to see the contents of her closet. What she sees instead makes her blood boil.

With a shout of, "What _the fuck_ do you think you're doing?" Nicole storms over the threshold to the closet.

The door slams shut behind her with a definitive _click._

 

....................

 

Sometime later Nicole walks out of her closet, slams it closed behind her, closes her eyes for a second, takes a deep breath, opens her eyes, and opens the closet door to find the contents of her closethad returned.

Reaching under a pile of clothes Nicole drags out an old leather luggage case and pulls it over to her couch where she collapses for all of a second before flipping the case open.

 

* * *

 

Nicole walks into her house, shoulders hunched, Wynonna's words running through her head.

What rankled Nicole the most about what Wynonna had said wasn't the implication that she either was a serial killer or was working for one, though that did hurt, no, it was the stated fact that no jurisdiction, no power, no _control_ in Purgatory.

For all that she had seen and done, Nicole Haught was,by all counts that mattered here, a rookie flatfoot.

And that, that _burned_.

Nicole unclipped her utility belt and opened her closet door, ready to chuck it in and catch apower nap before covering Davidsson's early shift.

Of course that was when her closet decided to stop being a closet, _again._

With a huff she re-clips her belt and tugs her boots back on before marching into the closet.

The door clicks closed once more.

 

..............

 

Nicole Haught's closet door slams open and two redheads come stumbling through, the shorter one guiding the taller one to the couch witha gentle but firm hand on her back, "Sit here and think about what happened and I mean _think_ in a constructive and realistic way and not _wollow_ in shame and guilt as you blame yourself for everything. I'm going to grab you something to eat."

Nicole walks over to her kitchen and takes a mug down from the cabinet, quickly filling it with a pouch from her fridge, and popping it in the microwave.

The air is heavy with words unspoken and no small amount of shame and guilt.

The microwave dings.

Nicole takes the warm mug outof the microwave and slides it across the coffee table to her companion who takes it with shaky hands.

"I've got to go to work soon, will you be okay here until I come back?"

The woman on the couch hesitates before nodding mutely.

Nicole sighs heavily and goes to change into her spare uniform.

 

* * *

 

Nicole wakes up to find herself in a hospital bed with Agent Dolls, Sheriff Nedley and Wynonna's mustachioed cowboy friend crowding her as Waverly Earp lingers by the doorway.

They want to know what happened to her and Wynonna.

 _Shit,what happened to me and Wynonna?_ Nicole wonders.

Neddley excuses himself to feed her cat. Nicole knows that that is a worse idea now than it normally would be, but she can't remember exactly why that would be the case.

The last clear memory Nicole can find is Waverly waving to her from the front porch, things before and after that are a blur, so that's what she tells them. Waverly runs out crying and Nicole knows honesty has betrayed her again.

Dolls and the cowboy, manage to tease a few sensory details out of her as the edges of her vision begin to get dark.

They leave her just before snatches of memory emerge: stopping the car because there's a man standing in the middle of the road, her body protesting the act of getting up and out of the car, fatigue weighing her down so heavily that she doesn't notice ten sharp, searing hot claws before they tear into her back, throwing her to the ground, Wynonna fumbling with Peacemaker before the first man sticks a syringe in her neck.

The darkness Nicole's vision completely.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack drops Doctor Murder without a thought, smiling all the while like the complete creeper he is.

His smile grows impossibly larger and creepier.

He lunges.

Wynonna flinches back.

The blow Wynonna expects never comes, instead all she feels is a soft rush of air.

Wynonna opens her eyes to see the Beast standing between her and Jack, who has a freshly bleeding gash in his torso as he leans against some crates.

 _I can't believe this is my life right now,_ Wynonna thinks before saying to the Beast, "Yo, Cujo, can you keep him there while I find my demon-killing gun?"

Cujo makes a terrifying noise that is somewhere a lizard's hiss and a tiger's snarl.

Wynonna takes that as a yes.

Jack tries to talk to her but she can't get a good read on what he's saying because of how loud Cujo is snarl-hissing.

When Wynonna returns Jack is laying on the ground, his innards exposed, Cujo looming over him. It almost makes Wynonna feel sorry for him.

Almost.

"Make your peace."

The gun goes off.

Wynonna slumps to the ground, numbly feeling Cujo curl around her, offering warmth and protection for a short while.

Doc and Dolls find her still sitting like that when they come barging in ten minutes later.

 

* * *

 

 

Nicole gets discharged the day after the attack. She tried to discharge herself sooner but the hospital and Nedley insisted she at least stay a day to 'stabilize'.

They said she was knocked out by a hit to the back of the head and left on the side of the road to die of exposure.

Nicole almost believes thats how it went.

Nedley hands her a note while she's stuck in bed, it reads:

I'm sorry, Nicole. I'm sorry for not calling more. I'm sorry for getting myself into this mess. I'm sorry for being petty and distant. I'm sorry for not listening to your warnings. I'm sorry for everything I put you through. I took one of your burners. I'll keep in touch. I mean it this time. I just need time and space to become me again and I can't do that in a place like this. I also can't ask you to leave with me for the same reason. This town needs you. May Artemis watch over you.

He asks her why it was taped to a coffee mug placed between a pair of freshly hewn deer antlers on the dining room table.

"My sister, she got into some rough stuff in college, dragged her back here to cool her heels and get her shit together. The antlers are supposed to mean everything's cool between us."

Nedley gives her a weird look, but thankfully drops it.

 

* * *

 

 

Wynonna stares up at the bear preparing itself to attack her as Eve fumbles with Peacemaker. A familiar roar reverberates through the snowy forest. 

Cujo pins the skinwalker right as it was about to attack her. 

A gunshot rings out.

Wynonna watches as Lou gets dragged to hell and the bear gets turned into a woman.

 Cujo sniffs the woman curiously before backing away from her, she runs off with a muttered 'Thank you'.

 Eve turns to face them and yelps at the sight of such a monstrous creature near her new friend, shakily raising Peacemaker to point it at Cujo, who responds by tensing up and starting to growl-hiss.

"Eve! Don't shoot! He's on our side, "Wynonna yells, arms outstreatched, between Eve and Cujo.

"What do you  _mean_ that  _thing_ is on our side?" Eve replies, clearly distressed. 

"I mean it saved my life twice now. Once from dying via Serial Killer Operation and once just now with the skinwalker. Lower the gun and he'll back off too."

Eve gives both Wynonna and Cujo a long look, but opts to drop her hand to her side with a solid amount of distance between herself and Cujo.

Cujo relaxes but remains alert, sheithing the mouthful of dangerous teeth so that only the tips of the two front fangs are visible.

"Oh, thank Jesus, I was only like 60% sure that would work.

Cujo snuffs as Eve rolls her eyes. "I see how it is, Wynonna snarks.

Wynonna and Cujo share a solemn nod once again before the creature disappears into the snowy woods.

 

* * *

 

"Wynonna, don't you dare give her that gun."

"Shut up, Haught, you don't know what you're talking about."

"I know that gun sends demons to hell and I know the whole town's been poisoned so she and Bobo can get thier hands on it to perform some sort of ritual. Frankly, that's all I need to know. Do not give her the fucking gun."

The whole time Nicole's been talking she's been shuffling closer to where Willa, one hand reaching out in a placating gesture.

"If the ginger wants to die here 'Nonna, I say let her, "Willa says before shooting a bullet into Nicole's gut. 

The thing people don't realize is that bulletproof vests loose effectiveness with every step closer to the gun the wearer is. 

Nicole was about two feet away from Willa.

She went down, hard.

Willa turns the gun on Waverly.

"Peacemaker. Now, Wynonna."

Nicole watches Wynonna hand over Peacemaker as she tries to get up off the ground.

_Fuck, willa's got the gun._

Nicole manages to stand, one hand putting pressure on her bullet wound the other using someone's desk as a crutch.

She watches Wynonna hesitate at the door, clearly torn between being there for Nicole and Waverly and following Willa.

Nicole makes eye contact with Wynonna and says, "You should go after her," nodding decisively.

Wynonna nods back, her mouth a grim line as she bolts after Willa.

**Author's Note:**

> Currently unbetaed  
> I can also be found at fifthhollow.tumblr.com


End file.
